There are cities that continue to build roads, others that instead close the streets and transform them into parks. It is the case of Apriliawhich on Saturday 15 June “celebrated” the definitive closure to traffic of Via Ireland, which connects, or rather used to connect, Via Toscanini to Via Guardapasso.
That area will now be pedestrianized: this will allow the creation of a linear park and the stitching together of the two strips of greenery of the David Sassoli park on the sides of the road. A linear park created paying attention to environmental sustainability.
The park in via Grecia will be a safer and more usable space, thanks to the new lighting system and two new fountains. Within this area, a construction workshop will be created with the inhabitants, re-adapting the sheds currently in use in the Francia park.
Finally, the Europa park will have a temporary bowling green, created in collaboration with citizens. The canopy that will cover the new bowling green will also be a shaded and refreshment area for citizens.
On Saturday, the inhabitants of the Toscanini neighborhood reclaimed an urban space: via Ireland, through the project financed with Pnrr funds and created by the designers of Studio Orizzontale, hosted a party and a neighborhood lunch. Work begins today.
The Toscanini neighborhood
“Toscanini” is a low-cost and popular housing district, built in the nineties on the outskirts of Aprilia. The failure to carry out the compensation works has contributed to the progressive physical and socio-economic malaise of an area with ten thousand inhabitants, left waiting for public spaces and services.
Over time, neglect, petty crime and illegal occupations have fueled the general sense of abandonment and insecurity, making the Toscanini hole a symbol of the failure of urban planning and of a physical distance that is also recognizable in the social fabric.
This place, which was taken away from the community for years, now houses the new square of the European Community and has been transformed into a meeting place for the entire neighbourhood.
